A man was shot and killed during an attempted robbery Friday night in Shadow Falls Park (also known as Monument Park) near the intersection of Summit Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard. There is believed to be no St. Thomas affiliation with the incident.

St. Paul Police said they were called to the park about 10:30 p.m. on a report of a robbery, and when they arrived they found a man dead from a gunshot.

Police said two people had attempted to rob two other people, one of whom pulled a gun and shot one of the suspects. The other suspect fled on foot. The victim had not been identified Saturday afternoon.

]]>https://www.stthomas.edu/news/one-dead-summit-mississippi-river-boulevard-shooting/feed/0Faculty and Staff are Invited to Contribute to the UST Library for Civilization Exhibithttps://www.stthomas.edu/news/faculty-staff-invited-contribute-ust-library-civilization-exhibit/ https://www.stthomas.edu/news/faculty-staff-invited-contribute-ust-library-civilization-exhibit/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 18:44:28 +0000http://www.stthomas.edu/news/?p=159761

Faculty and staff are invited to contribute to an upcoming exhibition, “Designed to Last: A Look at the Projects of the Long Now Foundation,” which will run throughout the fall semester on the third floor of the new Facilities & Design Center.

The exhibit will be an interactive, interdisciplinary space that explores technology and culture. Objects from the Long Now Foundation, a nonprofit that intervenes in instant-gratification culture by fostering long-term thinking, will be on display, including The Rosetta Disk and a piece of the 10,000 Year Clock.

As part of the exhibit, staff and faculty can help create a library that represents the university community. The library is inspired by the Long Now Foundation’s own Manual for Civilization, a collection of roughly 3,500 books that Long Now members have deemed essential to sustaining or rebuilding civilization.

To contribute, answer the following question: If you were stranded on an island (or small hostile planetoid), what book would you want to have with you? Submitted titles will be assembled in a temporary library.

To submit answers, fill out this online form by Friday, Aug. 7, with the following information:

The title and author of the book

A short explanation of why you have chosen this book

Your name

Your email address

The exhibit was developed by AnnMarie Thomas, Ph.D., associate professor of engineering, and Alex Kermes, with support from Sam Wisneski, who are both art history graduate students.

For the past year, the Human Resources Department has participated in the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School’s Corporate Work Study Program by employing students to work in the office one day per week from September to June. Departments now also can benefit from having a hard-working Cristo Rey student perform entry-level duties as part of the CWSP.

The CWSP provides students with real-world work experience and contributes to the cost of their education while developing the student’s marketable job skills and exposing them to engaging work environments and career development opportunities. The students come prepared with training and support from Cristo Rey’s CWSP coordinators and can perform tasks such as filing, copying, faxing and assembling information packets or mailings. Their funding for the CWSP already has been provided by the Human Resources Department.

Cristo Rey, located in Minneapolis, is part of the nationwide Cristo Rey Network of 28 high schools that provide a quality, Catholic, college preparatory education to young people who live in urban communities with limited educational options.

Please remember in your prayers Dwight C.H. “Dewey” Kautzmann, 69. He died July 23 in Bismarck, North Dakota. He was the father of DeAnn Kautzmann, Graduate Schedule and Registration Manager for Opus College of Business.

Visitation will be 4-8 p.m. Wednesday, July 29, at Buehler-Larson Funeral Home, Mandan.

The St. Thomas-owned house at 2091 Grand Ave. will be razed beginning today, Monday, July 27.

The house has been used for a variety of purposes since acquired by St. Thomas in the 1980s. The grounds department most recently used the house for its quarters until moving to the new Facilities and Design Center on the south campus last fall.

The 2091 Grand house is virtually beyond repair, said Facilities Management project manager Josh Gallus, and renovation work would have been extensive and expensive.

Please remember in your prayers Wayne Eisele, 96, who died July 15. He was the father of Mary Eisele Slack, adjunct faculty member in the Evening UST MBA program in the Opus College of Business.

Visitation will be 6-8:30 p.m., with a service at 7 p.m., Thursday, July 23, at Parrott and Wood Chapel of Memories, 965 Home Plaza, Waterloo, Iowa. The memorial Mass will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday, July 24, at St. Edward Catholic Church, 1423 Kimball Ave., Waterloo, Iowa.

Please remember in your prayers Maureen “Mo” Schroepfer, who served as office manager in Facilities Management at St. Thomas from 1968 to 1988. She died Monday and was 91.

The Aquin, the former student newspaper at St. Thomas, published a profile of Schroepfer in 1974, when she was secretary to John Garvin, superintendent of buildings and grounds. She said she spent a lot of time at work handling complaints about everything from broken radiators to non-functioning elevators to doorknobs that had fallen off.

A professor called one day to report a lost key, the Aquin wrote. “We even prayed to St. Anthony for that one,” Schroepfer said, and the next day the key was found.

She also recalled the time a neighbor called to ask why St. Thomas was fumigating the campus. “After asking several people what was going on,” the Aquin wrote, “it was decided that what the neighbor saw was merely dust raised in North Field by a helicopter the audio-visual department was using for taking pictures.”

Schroepfer preferred not to handle parking complaints, often referring them to Garvin. As the mother of three boys, she told the Aquin, she knew what it was like to part with money for a parking violation. “I sympathize with them,” she said.

A memorial funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Friday, July 10, at St. Mark’s Catholic Church, 2001 Dayton Ave., St. Paul, with visitation at the church an hour before the service. Read her full obituary here.

Greg Roberts, vice president for student affairs at St. Thomas from 1993 to 2003, has been named vice president for institutional advancement at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana, effective July 13.

Roberts has worked in higher education for 36 years, including 11 years as executive director of the American College Personnel Association, a Washington-based organization that serves 7,500 student affairs professionals from 1,200 institutions in 21 countries.

“I am excited to join the impressive team of educators and scholars at Saint Joseph’s,” Roberts said. “If everyone assumes responsibility for the future, we are already halfway there. The college has over 13,000 living alumni, and with their support and the support of our friends, there isn’t anything we can’t do to enhance the education and educational environment for students.”

Saint Joseph’s is a four-year Catholic college in northwestern Indiana with 1,200 students. It was founded in 1889 and is sponsored by the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.

The University of St. Thomas has joined Private College 529 Plan as one more way to help families save for and afford a private college education.

PC529 is a prepaid tuition plan that allows participating families to lock in today’s tuition rates for future use. Families purchase tuition certificates that guarantee the student’s tuition at current rates at any of the plan’s more than 275 member institutions for 30 years – no matter how much tuition rises or what happens in the financial markets.

With private school tuition still rising 3 percent to 5 percent a year, families potentially can save thousands of dollars on the cost of undergraduate education with PC529 Plan. Funds in the plan can be used only for tuition and mandatory fees at member institutions, so it can work alongside any traditional 529 savings accounts to pay for room and board, books and other higher education expenses. If the student does not attend a member school, funds in the plan can be rolled over to another 529 plan or the beneficiary can be changed.

“St. Thomas is a great addition to our prestigious list of private colleges and universities across the country and is the plan’s eighth school in Minnesota,” said Nancy Farmer, president of PC529 plan. “With tuition changes taking effect July 1, we are very pleased that interested families will now have the opportunity to lock in current rates for future education.”

St. Thomas is the 279th higher education institution to join the plan’s consortium of American private colleges and universities. The diverse range of member schools includes research universities; liberal arts colleges; religious schools; science and technology institutions; and more.

The PC529 Plan’s most recent surveys of 1,000 parents of 13- to 17-year-olds, and 1,000 teens in that same age range, found that 92 percent of each group said saving for college is important, yet only about a third of the parents are using tax-advantaged 529 plans to save for college.

Robert Lippert, who taught English at St. Thomas from 1955 to 1989 and was an activist in civil rights and peace movements, died June 18. He was 94.

Born in Havelock, Neb., Lippert graduated from St. Louis University and enlisted in the Army Air Force during World War II. He met Antoinette Bonafede after the war in Chicago, where they worked on neighborhood integration projects at a settlement house sponsored by Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker Movement. They married in 1948 and he taught in Washington state before joining the St. Thomas English faculty in 1955.

“Father (Vincent) Flynn, who was president, hired dad,” said his son, Tim Lippert, a 1976 St. Thomas alumnus. “We first lived in the huts called Tom Town, where the library and OEC are today, and later moved to a house on Cretin Avenue, beyond centerfield of the baseball field.”

Lippert taught at Knoxville College in Tennessee during the 1965-66 academic year, the first St. Thomas professor to participate in a faculty exchange program between four Minnesota private colleges and 33 predominantly black colleges in the South. He also taught the first African-American literature course at St. Thomas, “and that gave him great pleasure,” his son said.

His activism may have been spurred by an experience when he was six years old and the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in his family’s lawn because they were Catholic.

“I asked my father why they had done it and he replied that the Klan hated Jews, Catholics and Negroes,” Lippert told the Aquin, the St. Thomas student newspaper, in a 1965 profile. “Since that day, I’ve been interested in prejudice and its elimination.”

He also was active in veterans for peace efforts, was among the first St. Thomas faculty members to speak out against the Vietnam War and supported the 1968 presidential candidacy of Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who had taught at St. Thomas from 1946 to 1948.

Lippert ran as a DFLer for the Minnesota Senate in 1980. “I’m running for the sheer hell of it,” he said, and he later clarified his statement in an Aquin letter to the editor. His candidacy, he wrote, was based “on the assumption that in entering the political arena I will catch hell from some of my opponents, and that I will dish it out in the tradition of Harry Truman.”

Lippert lost the race to Republican Ron Sieloff but was philosophical about the defeat. During the campaign, he joked, he kissed only two babies, “one of whom was a grandchild.”

He once described himself to the Aquin as “Victorian, religious, Orthodox and a Christian humanist – I still believe in the devil.” He defined Victorians as “idealists” but said he also was a realist because Victorians “must appreciate the ideal before they can comment upon reality.”

Lippert most appreciated the classroom experience and engaging students in conversation, his son said. “When St. Thomas went to students ‘grading’ teachers, through evaluations, he didn’t like it at first but grew to appreciate it,” Tim Lippert said. “He loved the feedback from students.”

Survivors include his wife, five children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday at O’Halloran and Murphy Funeral Home, 575 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul, with a prayers and memories service at 6 p.m. Read his full obituary here.

Please remember in your prayers Sheila Engel, sister of Gene McGivern, Athletics, and aunt of Bridget McGivern ’17. She died Saturday in Davenport, Iowa. A Memorial Mass of Christian Burial will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Holy Family Catholic Church in Davenport, with visitation from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Halligan-McCabe-DeVries Funeral Home in Davenport. Read her obituary online.

The St. Thomas Employee Federal Credit Union held its annual meeting on May 13. At the meeting, President Joe Schwebel announced that Adrienne Sturm had retired as the credit union manager on April 1 after nearly 30 years of service.

When Sturm took over, the credit union had no official office and was run using paper account ledgers with all share deposits, loan payments, loan rates and quarterly interest calculated and posted manually into each member’s ledger page. The first permanent office of the credit union was at 32 Finn in what was formerly a small staff break room. Under Sturm’s management, the credit union became fully computerized, with increased hours and services added throughout her tenure.

It also was announced that Tony Erickson had been appointed the new credit union manager as of April 1. Erickson retired as the bookstores director in May 2014 after nearly 30 years of service at UST. Sturm was honored for her many years of service with fellow credit union members at a reception following the annual meeting.

The credit union is now located on the second floor of Loras Hall and offers new and used car loans, as well signature loans and savings accounts, including the popular Christmas Club account. Automatic payroll deduction is very popular with its members as a way of saving or making loan payments. For more information and office hours, visit the credit union’s website.

Are you ready to stay active and get moving this summer and earn 350 Vitality points? The Lazy Triathlon is a six-week competition to challenge participants to complete the total miles of either a half, full or double Ironman triathlon.

Work out anywhere, any time, and complete the total miles through any combination of swimming, biking and/or running and walking. Events are interchangeable as long as you complete the total miles/distance you register for.

Half Ironman distance: 1.2 miles swimming (6.6 laps per week), 56 miles biking (9 1/3 miles per week), 13.1 miles running (5/16 mile per day). The half Ironman is 70.3 total miles, which averages to be about 12 miles of activity per week.

Full Ironman distance: 2.4 miles swimming (13.2 laps per week), 112 miles biking (18 2/3 miles per week), 26.2 miles running (5/8 mile per day). The full Ironman is 140.6 total miles total, which averages to be about 23.5 miles of activity per week.

Double Ironman distance: 4.8 miles swimming (26.4 laps per week), 224 miles biking (37 1/3 miles per week), 53.4 miles running (1.25 miles per day). The double Ironman is 281.2 total miles total, which averages to be about 47 miles of activity per week.

Sign up today and begin tracking your miles starting June 17. Click here to register.

Participants have up to six weeks (6/17/2015-7/28/2015) to complete all three parts of either a half, full or double Ironman distance triathlon.

Keep track of the number of milesyou complete each week starting Wednesday, June 17. Weekly miles can be completed through either the traditional mileage breakdown of swimming, biking and running OR through the event(s) that participants feel most comfortable with. For example, you could complete the total half ironman distance by just walking and/or biking.

Once registered, look for emails giving you week-by-week instructions that will include a link to a simple form to submit your weekly miles. A week starts on a Wednesday and ends the following Tuesday at midnight.

You will receive an email link to enter your miles every Wednesday starting June 17. Submit the total number of miles you logged each week no later than 2 p.m. Thursday.

You can join in at any time in the program, and your miles start at that particular time.

If you complete the total miles for your chosen triathlon distance by July 28 you will earn 350 Vitality points.

A farewell reception for Dr. Calvin Hill, university diversity and inclusion officer, will be held from 3-4 p.m. Tuesday, June 23, in the Anderson Student Center Hearth Room 340. Last month Hill was named vice president, diversity and community engagement, at Springfield College in Massachusetts.

Hill began his role at St. Thomas in January 2015. He will be missed, according to Father Larry Snyder, vice president for mission. “Calvin quickly impacted the campus community with many strong initiatives, his quick smile and self-deprecating sense of humor,” said Snyder. “Our reception will be an opportunity to express our thanks and wish him well in this new endeavor.”

Hill will rejoin his wife and daughter in Massachusetts. His new appointment is effective July 1.

The University of St. Thomas will join The Common Application beginning August 2015. The Common App began in 1975 when 15 private colleges began accepting a common, standardized, first-year application for their prospective students to use. Over 1 million students annually utilize the free, online first-year and transfer application that is now accepted at over 500 public and private institutions across the nation. Last year, students submitted over 3,000,000 applications to Common App member institutions.

Kris Roach, director of admissions and financial aid, explained that joining Common App is consistent with efforts to increase new student enrollment, to further diversify St. Thomas’ community of scholars and to expand the markets from which the university recruits students. “The Common App is recognized as the industry leader in providing an efficient and expedient method for students to submit all of their college applications and their essays from one online site,” she said.

St. Thomas joins nine Minnesota colleges and universities that are Common App members.

The Adjunct Faculty Council is proud to announce the election of the first-ever adjuncts to the University of St. Thomas Faculty Senate: Kathy Jenson (Opus College of Business) and Marguerite Hattouni Spencer (College of Arts and Sciences).

Please remember in your prayers Norbert Robertson, 95, who died May 30. He was a 1947 alumnus and received the then Mr. Tommy Award. He also played football, hockey and baseball while at St. Thomas, and taught at St. Thomas Academy for five years after graduating.

Mass of Christian burial will be 10 a.m. Monday, June 8, at Lumen Christi Catholic Church, 2055 Bohland Ave., St. Paul, with visitation at 9 a.m.

Urban Flower Field will kick off another season with an opening day celebration from 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, June 6. Guests can paint fieldstones to place along the art-filled paths, enjoy a glass of lemonade and talk with the artists and scientists behind the project to learn what’s happening in 2015. This event is free and open to the public.

Public Art Saint Paul’s artist Amanda Lovelee and researchers from the University of St. Thomas will be at the event.

Urban Flower Field is a multi-faceted intersection of art and science at the site of the future Pedro Park in downtown St. Paul, at the corner of 10th and Robert Street. A collaboration between Public Art Saint Paul and the environmental science program at the University of St. Thomas, Urban Flower Field is a pioneering model that transforms urban spaces in transition into places of hope and beauty and that integrates scientific research into temporary public art.

The Urban Flower Field won a 2014 Great Places Award. The award recognizes places open to the public in the seven-county metro area that are memorable, transformational and elevate function to art.

The Forum on Workplace Inclusion, the largest diversity and inclusion conference in the country, is accepting applications for presentations at its 2016 conference.

St. Thomas community members are invited to complete a “call for presentations” application for the conference, which will be March 29-31 at the Minneapolis Convention Center with the theme, “Making All the Difference … Bold Conversations. New Directions.” The conference will be presented by the Opus College of Business.

President Julie Sullivan

St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan encourages people to submit applications for presentations. She told 1,100 participants from 300 companies at last March’s “Making Waves” conference how impressed she was that St. Thomas was collaborating with 60 other sponsors from around the country to make the forum possible.

“It is proof to me that businesses and organizations large and small are doing more than talk about inclusion and diversity,” she said. “They are working together to embrace not only a concept but also a reality – that they must engage people, advance ideas and ignite change.

Sullivan also noted how St. Thomas’ leadership of, and strong participation in, the forum reflect the importance of the university’s strategic priority of “Embracing Our Differences as One Human Family.”

Conference presentation options are 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 90 minutes and 3.5 hours, each with its own format. Applications are welcome on any topics related to diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and especially are encouraged on best practices, challenging issues and controversial topics. Learning levels range from introductory to advanced.

The forum is designed for professionals who manage a diverse workforce, are responsible for diversity within organizations of all sizes or work with multicultural clientele. The forum includes a career fair and career services center, general sessions with keynote speakers, six in-depth seminars, 50 concurrent sessions led by experts in diversity, and receptions and networking opportunities.

Please remember in your prayers Alice C. Grider, who died Saturday, May 2, at her home in Indianapolis, Indiana. She served as the director of Multicultural Student Services at St. Thomas from 1996-2004.

A memorial service will be held June 6 at Covenant Community Church on Cooper Road in Indianapolis. Memorials to the Grider family can be sent to Thomas Grider, 4811 Leon Dr. Indianapolis, Indiana 46226.

]]>https://www.stthomas.edu/news/please-remember-camille-donaldson-sypura-prayers/feed/0Justice and Peace Studies Celebrates 30 Years at St. Thomashttps://www.stthomas.edu/news/justice-peace-studies-celebrates-30-years-st-thomas/ https://www.stthomas.edu/news/justice-peace-studies-celebrates-30-years-st-thomas/#commentsWed, 27 May 2015 20:46:18 +0000http://www.stthomas.edu/news/?p=158624

The Department of Justice and Peace Studies commemorated 30 years at St. Thomas on May 3 in Scooter’s. Students, faculty, administration, alumni, and family and friends shared their JPST memories and discussed current and future JPST happenings.

The department celebrated its founder, Father David Smith, professor emeritus from the Theology Department. Alumni shared stories about Smith and offered thanks for his guidance, kindness, wisdom, passion, inspiration and music. Smith performed on fiddle with UST faculty and staff from the Show’d Up Band.

“I was always impressed by the time he took to get to know each student, their interests and their goals,” said Michael Anderson ’05 of Smith. Anderson is a senior consultant with La Piana Consulting and works with nonprofits and foundations on strategy development and business planning.

The event connected current students with alumni of JPST. Tables were grouped by areas of practice from the Social Change Wheel, including education, volunteer direct service, formal political processes, economic development, community organizing, confrontational strategies and community building, so students could meet alumni working in areas they wished to pursue or learn more about.

Heidi Tousignant ’92, an administration and technology specialist at Guardian Angels Church in Oakdale, Minnesota, said it was “renewing and energizing” to talk with so many people dedicated to peace and justice.

“It is so inspiring to hear what they (students) think about their experience and commitment to different issues,” Tousignant said. “I get a lot of hope (and pride!) when I hear what they are doing with their studies and their lives.”

The origins of the JPST program date back to 1983, when the U.S. Catholic bishops published, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” calling all levels of Catholic education to engage themes pertaining to the ongoing nuclear arms race. Shortly thereafter, Archbishop John Roach asked Monsignor Terrence Murphy, then president of St. Thomas, “So what are you going to do about our letter?”

Murphy responded by creating an interdisciplinary faculty committee. When the resulting program began in 1987, Smith mentored the handful of students who pursued JPST as a minor. In 1991, JPST became a major field interdisciplinary program operating out of the Theology Department.

Today, JPST is a full-fledged academic department in the College of Arts and Sciences with upward of 50 students and three permanent faculty. Students can choose from four tracks within the major: Public Policy Analysis and Advocacy, Conflict Analysis and Transformation, Leadership for Social Justice, as well as a “generalist” track.

The department was inspired by Smith’s conviction that St. Thomas students should not only grow in understanding of their faith, but also live out those convictions concretely to fulfill the university’s mission to “advance the common good.” The mission of JPST is to prepare students to be responsible critics of contemporary societies and effective agents for positive social transformation.

Some of the recent goings-on of the department include student participation in the Conflict Resolution Minnesota Conference; a joint-dialogue session with ROTC students on “Ethics of Intervention” regarding Ebola in West Africa; the attendance of and presentations by four faculty and two students at the Peace & Justice Studies Association Conference in October 2014 in San Diego; and the installation of A Peace of My Mind with John Noltner Photography Exhibit for two weeks in February 2015 (co-sponsored by six departments).

The majority of this summer’s roster of construction projects at the University of St. Thomas will focus on maintaining, updating and restoring parts of the university. Scheduled projects are listed below. Construction may cause some parking lots and areas of certain buildings to close temporarily during the summer. Please view Facilities Management’s website to review an up-to-date project listing.

44 N. Cleveland

The Art History Department will move into 44 N. Cleveland Ave. on June 4. Repainting and flooring improvements are currently underway to complete the upgrades and maintenance.

Aquinas Hall

The exterior face of all the exterior windows will be prepped and repainted July 1-Aug. 21.

Four areas of the exterior stone – two on the south and two on the north – will be repointed.

In an effort to expand the space of the Controller and Human Resources offices, Accounts Payable will move to Rooms 302 and 304, and Purchasing to 301 and 303. Payroll will move to 202 and 204, and HR to 201 and 203.

Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas

Drainage will be improved between the east side of the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Faculty Residence. The storm sewer will be extended into the area and the surface grading altered. Additionally, landscaping will be updated on the east side of the chapel as well as the north and west side of Faculty Residence. The project tentatively will start July 1 and finish Aug. 28.

Facilities and Design Center

The site for the recycling and waste compactors, between Anderson Parking Facility and McCarthy Gym, will be prepared late May with the compactors delivered by early July as St. Thomas moves to single-sort recycling and centralized waste management. Completion date is Aug. 1.

New lighting and window treatments will be installed June 5-19 in the exhibition area on the center’s third floor.

Stone work will be completed at the front entry June 1-July 1. The front entry will be closed during this time.

John R. Roach Center

The exterior face of all the exterior windows will be prepped and repainted June 1-July 10.

Murray-Herrick Campus Center

New carpet will be installed in the Bookstore, beginning and ending in July.

The final phase of updating the restrooms will begin mid-June and be completed Aug. 21. The lower-level men’s and women’s restrooms, as well as the men’s restroom on the third floor, will be updated similar to the first- and second-floor project last summer.

Owens Science Hall – chemistry remodel

Modifications will be made to Rooms 469, 472, 473, 474 and 475. Project start date to be determined.

Sitzmann Hall

The exterior brick of the original Sitzmann building will be repointed. Project is underway and expected to be completed July 24.

Additional projects

A new University of St. Thomas monument will be installed on the corner of Grand and Cretin avenues from May 26-July 17. The monument will be similar to the monument on Cretin and Goodrich.

New sidewalks will be installed east of O’Shaughnessy Educational Center, and east and west of Owens Science Hall during June.

Parking lot repairs and maintenance will occur across campus, with areas to be determined.

The landscape planter located southwest of the Cretin Avenue and Summit Avenue intersection, as well as the planter located southwest of Cleveland and Summit, will be modified. Stamped concrete will fill the current planter area with decorative precast planters sitting on the concrete. This will allow for all-season plantings.